• October 17, 1994
• Vol. 42
• No. 16

Lovable Lyle

Whoopi Goldberg Marries Her Union Organizer Beau

MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE used signs. You know, like the "No Comment" cards Whoopi, 44, and ex-boyfriend Ted Danson once flashed when asked about their feelings for each other. Not that the bride, resplendent in an off-white, antique-lace gown and satin Mary Janes, and her groom, union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg, 40, didn't have plenty to say last Saturday during their 15-minute wedding ceremony. It's just that few of the 350 folks in the garden of Goldberg's Pacific Palisades, Calif., home—including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Natalie Cole, Steven Spielberg, Robin Williams, Jay Leno and Richard Pryor—could hear them. Some half dozen helicopters filled with tabloid reporters—the chopperazzi—hovered above, drowning out almost all sound. Surprisingly, Whoopi, who had "F-k You" painted in white block letters on her roof, couldn't stop laughing. "She would just about get hold of herself," says one guest, "and then she'd start up again. She tried to stop when she kissed Lyle, but she was still smirking."

Oh, well. As she had just told Trachtenberg, whom she met last year on the set of Corrina, Corrina, "This is what you're going to get with me." At the wedding, some of her pals seemed curious about what she was going to get with him. Jon Voight, for one, worked the crowd, quizzing Trachtenberg's buddies—"like a friendly uncle," he says. When Voight met Lyle himself, the actor relaxed. "He's down-to-earth, charming and intelligent," says Voight. "This is the match all her friends prayed for." Pryor, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and needed a motorized cart to get around, couldn't agree more. He nibbled shrimp kabobs and apricot wedding cake—complete with a black bride and a white groom atop—and still had a yen for more. "I've never seen Whoopi look so happy," says Pryor. "I wanted to take a bite out of her."